MEET THE MAKER
CHAMPIONING
ABORIGINAL FARE
After experiencing a light-bulb moment while literally stirring the
pot, Juleigh Robins and her husband Ian began the long journey of
establishing Outback Spirit Provenance. The condiment company
embraces native and Indigenous ingredients, and produces sauces,
chutneys, and barbecue rubs inspired by Aboriginal recipes.
We chat to Juleigh about the future of native Australian food.
You and Ian have been enthusiasts of
native bush foods for some 25 years- how did that all start and why did it
become such a passion?
We had a retail specialty food store
and catering business in Toorak,
Melbourne at the end of the ’80s and
made absolutely everything we sold,
from the morning croissants to the
homemade jam we served with them.
One evening, I was stirring a 20-litre
pot of raspberry jam and my thoughts
were wandering. I started thinking
about the raspberries we were cooking
and that they originated in Europe,
which got me thinking about the fruit
we have in Australia that was not
introduced from another country – in
other words, I was thinking about
what native fruits we had in Australia.
To my surprise, Ian and I couldn’t
think of a single fruit that didn’t
originally come from another country.
I’m no nutritionist, but I knew that if
Indigenous Australians lived here for
tens of thousands of years, they had to
eat fruit and vegetables, so as a food
professional, how did I not know about
them? This was quite an epiphany
and I began searching in libraries for
information and contacting Aboriginal
communities to try and learn more,
and met the most amazing and
generous people along the way – and
the rest, as they say, is history. Our
passion was born!
There is often debate about whether
Australia has an identifiable national
approach to cuisine, and, if so, what
that actually is. Do you think Australian
native foods now have a role in
defining that?
Australia cannot have an identifiable
cuisine without the inclusion of our
native ingredients. I prefer to call them
Australian ingredients because that is
what they are. These foods come from
the land, they come from the culture
of country and they are unique to
us – to our land. In Australia we have
such a cornucopia of ingredients to
choose from and such amazing quality
that we are truly blessed and because
we have not been weighed down by
long-standing cooking traditions,